US Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan is set to testify on July 13 before the House Judiciary Committee led by Republicans who have sharply criticized her leadership of the antitrust enforcement agency, the committee, and commission confirmed on Friday.
This will be her first appearance before the committee since
Republicans assumed control.
Republicans have been especially critical of the FTC's
privacy investigation into Twitter since it was purchased by billionaire Tesla
CEO Elon Musk.
In March, the FTC confirmed it was conducting an
investigation into Twitter's privacy practices. The agency has been concerned
whether Twitter had the staffing to abide by a May 2022 settlement with the FTC
in which it agreed to improve its privacy practices.
In April, the committee subpoenaed Khan for documents
related to the Twitter privacy probe following Musk's $44 billion purchase of
the social media company in October.
House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan suggested in a
June 8 letter "there is an unjustified approximate one-year gap in the
FTC's actions with respect to Twitter" and added it was reasonable to
conclude neither the prior chair nor Khan "seriously planned to take
action against Twitter "until political pressure arose given Mr. Musk's
impending acquisition."
Jordan in February also questioned the FTC's plans to adopt
a new rule to ban noncompete clauses for workers and its approach to the merger
of Illumina and Grail.
San Diego-based Illumina, which specializes in gene
sequencing, is appealing an FTC order that said the company's $7.1 billion acquisition
of Grail will curb competition in the cancer-testing market. Illumina has
denied the allegations.
The FTC, which typically has five commissions including two
from the minority party, currently has just three Democratic commissioners
after Christine Wilson stepped down at the end of March.
Khan, an antitrust researcher focused on Big Tech's immense
market power, vowed to reinvigorate antitrust enforcement after she joined the
FTC in June 2021 and was named chair.
This week the FTC sued Amazon.com accusing it of enrolling
millions of consumers into its paid subscription Amazon Prime service without
their consent and making it hard for them to cancel.
Politico first reported the plans for the hearing. © Reuters